Cross-Media Environmental Impacts of Air Pollution Regulations for a Coal-Fired Power Plant

The types and rates of pollutant emissions from a coal-fired power plant depend upon plant design, coal characteristics, and environmental control policy. In the past, air pollution regulations were often promulgated without rigorous analysis of the resulting energy penalties and secondary environmental impacts that occur in other environmental media (air, land, or water), which are counterproductive to overall environmental quality. This paper describes a Comparative Assessment Model that has been developed to consider systematically such tradeoffs for conventional and advanced coal-to-electric technologies. The model is applied to quantify the secondary (“cross-media”) environmental and resource impacts resulting from alternative air pollution control policies that reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from a 1000 MW power plant. Multimedia pollutant burdens are presented, together with the increased requirements for coal, limestone, and water that are incurred in generating a fixed net quantity of electricity. The development of sound public policy requires that environmental regulations be sensitive to adverse effects in all environmental media, and that tradeoffs involved in the regulation of specific pollutants to one medium be rigorously and systematically characterized.     

NABat: A top-down,bottom-up solution to collaborative continental-scale monitoring

Collaborative monitoring over broad scales and levels of ecological organization can inform conservation efforts necessary to address the contemporary biodiversity crisis. An important challenge to collaborative monitoring is motivating local engagement with enough buy-in from stakeholders while providing adequate top-down direction for scientific rigor, quality control, and coordination. Collaborative monitoring must reconcile this inherent tension between top-down control and bottom-up engagement. Highly mobile and cryptic taxa, such as bats, present a particularly acute challenge. Given their scale of movement, complex life histories, and rapidly expanding threats, understanding population trends of bats requires coordinated broad-scale collaborative monitoring. The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) reconciles top-down, bottom-up tension with a hierarchical master sample survey design, integrated data analysis, dynamic data curation, regional monitoring hubs, and knowledge delivery through web-based infrastructure. NABat supports collaborative monitoring across spatial and organizational scales and the full annual lifecycle of bats.     

The Efficacy of a Programme of Landslide Risk Reduction in Areas of Unplanned Housing in the Eastern Caribbean

Poor countries are disproportionately affected by the cost of disasters. Yet there is evidence of the benefits of seeking to mitigate the impact of a disaster, compared with the costs incurred in ‘making good’ after a major event has occurred. This article reviews a programme of landslide risk reduction in unplanned communities in the Eastern Caribbean. The construction of appropriate surface water management measures, based on the application of scientific and engineering principles, has been demonstrated to reduce the hazard from rainfall-triggered landslides. Adopting a community-based approach additionally delivers social and environmental benefits relating to employment generation, improvements in the environmental conditions within the community, and improvements slope management practices. The sustained implementation of the community-based projects has provided the necessary evidence-base for these practices to influence Government policy and practice, and gain recognition from regional development agencies. The strategic and incremental uptake of the community-based methodology is demonstrated to be an effective means for delivering physical landslide risk reduction measures in the most ‘at risk’ areas of unplanned housing.     

Effect of electron beam irradiation on the degradation of monochlorophenols in aqueous solution

Electron beam was successfully used for the degradation of 2-chlorophenol (2-CP) and 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) in aqueous solutions in this research. The effect of radiation dose on substrate degradation and dechlorination of solutions with concentration of 50mg/L was investigated. The effect of initial concentration, pH and presence of oxygen was also investigated. The concentration of 2-CP and 4-CP remaining in solution after irradiation were measured by HPLC. The results showed that increased radiation dose led to increased degradation of the chlorophenols and increased CI^- yield. Deaeration was also found to significantly increase the rate of degradation of chlorphenols in water while degradation and dechlodnation under alkaline condition was lower than at low to neutral pH.     

Low‐concentration hydrogen peroxide decontamination for Bacillus spore contamination in buildings

Remediation and recovery efforts after a release of Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) spores may be difficult and costly. In addition, response and recovery technologies may be focused on critical resources, leaving the small business or homeowner without remediation options. This study evaluates the efficacy of relatively low levels of hydrogen peroxide vapor (HPV) delivered from off‐the‐shelf equipment for the inactivation of Bacillus spores within an indoor environment. Decontamination evaluations were conducted in a house using both Bacillus atrophaeus var. globigii (Bg; as surrogates for B. anthracis) inoculated on the carpet and galvanized metal as coupons and Geobacillus stearothermophilus (Gs) as biological indicators on steel. The total decontamination time ranged from 4 to 7 days. Using the longer exposure times, low concentrations of HPV (average levels below 20 parts per million) effectively inactivated Bg and Gs spores on the materials tested. The HPV was generated with commercial humidifiers and household‐strength hydrogen peroxide solutions. The presence of home furnishings did not have a significant impact on HPV efficacy. This simple, inexpensive, and effective decontamination method could have significant utility for remediation following a B. anthracis spore release, such as following a terrorist attack.     

Residency and depth movements of a coastal group of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.)

Atlantic cod stocks are subdivided into geographically and biologically discrete populations; some being locally resident, others migratory. The reasons for the variation in migration pattern and the consequences it may have for population structuring is poorly understood. We studied a group of cod from the coastal waters of the Shetland Isles in the northern North Sea. During the spawning season, electronic tags that record depth and temperature over time were implanted into 133 individuals and the fish released within a few kilometres of where they were captured. Thirty-nine cod have been recaptured up to 608 days later, throughout the year and, in all but two cases, within 15 km of their release site. Geolocation methods based on temperature and bathymetry also suggested that the cod had a limited home range, remaining resident year-round in coastal waters. The cod were deeper during the winter and moved to shallower water in late spring and summer. They showed diel, fortnightly and monthly cycles in depth movement that varied much within and between individuals over the season. Residency and the individual variability in vertical movement may reflect a combination of locally complex depth strata, variable seabed substrate and the wide range of seasonally available prey resources.     

Fate and transport of the β-adrenergic agonist ractopamine hydrochloride in soil–water systems

The feed additive ractopamine hydrochloride was fortified at four concentrations into batch vials containing soils that differed in both biological activity and organic matter(OM).Sampling of the liquid layer for 14 days demonstrated that ractopamine rapidly dissipated from the liquid layer. Less than 20% of the fortified dose remained in the liquid layer after 4 hr,and recoveries of dosed ractopamine ranged from 8 to 18% in the liquid layer at 336 hr. Sorption to soil was the major fate for ractopamine in soil:water systems, i.e., 42%–51% of the dose at14 days. The major portion of the sorbed fraction was comprised of non-extractables; a smaller fraction of the sorbed dose was extracted into water and acetone, portions which would be potentially mobile in the environment. Partitioning coefficients for all soils suggested strong sorption of ractopamine to soil which is governed by hydrophobic interactions and cation exchange complexes within the soil OM. Ractopamine degradation was observed, but to mostly non-polar compounds which had a higher potential than ractopamine to sorb to soil. The formation of volatiles was also suggested. Therefore, despite rapid and extensive soil sorption,these studies indicated a portion of ractopamine, present in manures used to fertilize soils,may be mobile in the environment via water-borne events.     

Molecular Transport of Xylene Through Palm Pressed Fibre Filled Low Density Polyethylene: Role of Fibre Content,Alkali Treatment and Particle Size

We report in this paper the transport of an aromatic solvent, xylene through palm pressed fibre filled low density polyethylene composites studied at three different temperatures (40, 60, and 80 °C) by conventional weight-gain method. The diffusion parameters were investigated with special reference to the effect of fibre content, temperature and particle size. The effect of alkali treatment on solvent uptake was also analyzed. The transport coefficients of diffusion, permeation and sorption were determined to evaluate the influence of interface bonding on transport properties. The van’t Hoff relationship was used to determine the thermodynamic parameters and was found that the estimated free energies of sorption were all positive, indicating non-spontaneity of the solubility of PPF/LDPE composites. The first order kinetic rate constant and swelling parameters were also evaluated.     

The vulnerability of hydropower production in the Zambezi River Basin to the impacts of climate change and irrigation development

The Zambezi River Basin in southern Africa is relatively undeveloped from both a hydropower and irrigated agriculture perspective, despite the existence of the large Kariba and Cahora Bassa dams. Accelerating economic growth increases the potential for competition for water between hydropower and irrigated agriculture, and climate change will add additional stresses to this system. The objective of this study was to assess the vulnerability of major existing and planned new hydropower plants to changes in climate and upstream irrigation demand. Our results show that Kariba is highly vulnerable to a drying climate, potentially reducing average electricity generation by 12 %. Furthermore, the expansion of Kariba generating capacity is unlikely to deliver the expected increases in production even under a favourable climate. The planned Batoka Gorge plant may also not be able to reach the anticipated production levels from the original feasibility study. Cahora Bassa’s expansion is viable under a wetting climate, but its potential is less likely to be realised under a drying climate. The planned Mphanda Nkuwa plant can reach expected production levels under both climates if hydropower is given water allocation priority, but not if irrigation is prioritised, which is likely. For both Cahora Bassa and Mphanda Nkuwa, prioritising irrigation demand over hydropower could severely compromise these plants’ output. Therefore, while climate change is the most important overall driver of variation in hydropower potential, increased irrigation demand will also have a major negative impact on downstream plants in Mozambique. This implies that climate change and upstream development must be explicitly incorporated into both project and system expansion planning.